All Wet

'Kiss me in the rain, And make me feel like a child again,
With the feeling that I get, I don’t even mind if we get wet'



As I sit on my front porch today, rain heavily pouring down, I am drifting again to the past. I guess I am at the age that is common. I had a birthday earlier this month and although still years from forty, they are less than the years from thirty...

I have never really been a big fan of most of the women commonly considered gay icons. My music tastes tend to lean more toward alternative and classic rock. Except clips on television, and a half viewing of The Wizard Of Oz when I was a kid, I have never seen anything Judy Garland related. The closest I have come is the tv movie with Judy Davis and Rachael Blanchard (who was amazing). (I have the movie on DVD and promise to finish it one day!) I like Cher, especially her work in Silkwood and Mask. I don’t really like Bette Midler and I although I like some Madonna music, can take or leave her. I only recently heard a Kylie song and LOVED but am sort of over Gaga’s unrestrained take over of American pop culture.



Last week, while visiting my family, my mother was on a kick to purge her house of stuff. I was browbeaten into going through boxes and crates to take anything and everything. With my mother, you don’t really say no, you just sort of do it. Most of what I piled in my car I knew was going straight into the garbage, my goal in taking it all from her house was strictly about her wants, not mine. But...in the old stereo, the large wooden one everyone had with a record player, cassette player and place for albums ,there was among the Neil Diamonds, the K-tel compilations and Beatles a few old cassettes that I wanted to give a listen to.

My mother loved Barbra Streisand. Although of course I am familiar with her music, my biggest connection was through her film work and the songs associated with them. Streisand will always be ‘the voice’ but I liked her in movies, especially A Star Is Born and The Way We Were and wished she had passed on being a Focker.



I had of course listened to these soundtracks a lot growing up, but now, in my thirties, Guilty and Wet, although dated, are also kind of new. Guilty was a huge hit for Streisand and Barry Gibb, but Wet, which includes her duet with the late Donna Summer doesn’t seem to have made as big a splash. I am sort of astounded Streisand’s Kiss Me In The Rain was not a bigger hit. I think I will get the CD’s of both, Streisand, unlike so many who are compared to her, knew her voice was special and anything special needs careful attention.



Whitney had a great voice, but in the end, it paled to what it was. Mariah and Christina are still lauded for their vocals, yet I can’t be the only one who hears theirs have too lost the magic they could once generate. Britney was never about voice, she didn’t have one, she is about song and movement. As I sit on the porch, myself getting pretty wet, with old cassette player in hand, the music brings back memories of the thousands of concerts I gave as a kid, in my livingroom for an audience of no one...and they loved me!